Oak flooring manufacturer Millennium Hardwoods has diversified by investing in an engineered wood flooring production line to open up a new customer base.
The County Durham-based company has invested several hundred thousand pounds in equipment to produce engineered boards and in doing so has become one of only a few companies to manufacture the product in the UK.
Previously, the company imported engineered flooring from Ukraine and Lithuania.
“We are solid oak flooring manufacturers and in the last five or six years we have also been importing engineered boards,” said managing director Sharon Jacques.
“We’ve seen the market move away from solid to engineered boards so we’ve had to diversify.”
The company’s normal customer base is retailers and web re-sellers but the move opens up the possibility of supplying timber importers and distributors.
“We’re talking to some of the larger importers about it,” she said.
PEFC-certified WISA spruce ply is being used as the backing board because, the company says, the material is very stable and makes a very flat flooring board. Combined with PEFC French Oak top layers, Millennium’s objective has been to produce one of the most environmentally friendly engineered flooring products on the market.
Production capacity on a single shift is in excess of 26,000m² per month. The principal new piece of equipment is a press line for gluing the solid wood top layer to the plywood.
A brand is currently being formulated and sales will be channelled through new company European Oak Ltd.
